Wednesday, 29 February 2012

1983: PRE-LAUNCH ACTION FORCE PROMOTION FOR MARVEL-UK WEEKLY

This is a fascinating sales brochure produced by Palitoy for the British toy trade.

As it points out, a "masterstroke" of their Action Force launch strategy was planned to be a new 24-page ACTION FORCE weekly comic, published by Marvel UK and timed for a June 1983 launch (supported, apparently, by TV promotion).

The image below is, presumably, a mock-up rather than a finalised cover. 

For reasons unknown, the Marvel weekly didn't happen and an Action Force strip appeared for four weeks in IPC's BATTLE during June.  

This was followed by a series of five 8-page mini-comic inserts included in IPC's boys adventure weeklies on a fortnightly basis during July - September 1983.

BATTLE formally became BATTLE ACTION FORCE from the issue cover-dated 8 October 1983 with half its pages devoted to three toy-based strips.  

This arrangement lasted until the issue cover-dated 6 December 1986 when the Action Force material was dropped ahead of a new full-colour Marvel UK weekly (mixing original British material with reversioned G.I. JOE reprints).

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